Twilight
by Laryna6
Summary: He's never been a morning person, and dusk takes too long. Kain reflects after Defiance, on Raziel, his parents & anything that comes to mind. Nonslash. Written long before I ever heard of the books.


_Disclaimer: I don't own Legacy of Kain: Eidos & Crystal Dynamics do. _

_Why am I so fascinated with Kain's musings immediately post-Defiance?_

_- _

Kain had always hated mornings.

At the military academy his parents (eager to get him out of the house) had sent him to, he had been forced to get up, dress himself, make his bed, clean up, and all these other tasks his valet should have done as though he was a _commoner._ The fact all the other students, some even more nobly born than him, had suffered the same made no difference: he knew, even then, that he was superior to all of them.

After he graduated and began wandering instead of accepting the many officer posts offered him, for he was a tactical genius even then, though some of his teachers claimed he was too spendthrift with the lives of his men, he ignored the existence of mornings altogether. Night, ah, night was when he came alive, when there was drinking, wrenching and gambling to be done.

Mornings became a time to go to bed after a successful night. Except when he was forced awake by the rare hangover: he took better care of himself than his compatriots. Not that any of the easily-fleeced fools he surrounded himself with were truly his peers.

Though he took care to keep them from finding out he used loaded dice. He was never one to leave things to chance, not even before he began his war against fate.

When his parents died, the will was read at an ungodly hour, by his standards. He took care to be present, and to act the proper grieving son, despite how much he wanted to strangle them.

Knowing what he did now, he wondered if he would have loved them if it hadn't been for Nupraptor and his own doomed love. But he didn't become capable of that until he became capable of so much more. Thinking back on them, however, now he was pure, he felt some guilt. They had tried, at least, and forgiven him much. The punishments he had resented at the time, for he had not understood that he had done anything wrong, he comprehended now.

His mother had wished that he have children as difficult as he was. He wasn't sure he had escaped that fate or not, given Zephon. But Raziel was more than he deserved, and he found he missed Rahab as well.

It wasn't that Raziel's sacrifice had entirely cleared his vision, hindsight was still… less than perfect, clouded by memory. But…

After he became a vampire, he hated dawn because it came with a lessening of his strength. He saw other vampires staked to wait for the dawn and a horrible death, and that helped fuel his new dislike of humanity, which before he had preferred for no better reason that it was his species. Now, however, he learned that his new curse was a blessing.

Would he have starved to death if he had been uncursed? Would he have felt pity, reluctance to kill, for all his prey as he had gone to such great lengths to spare Raziel? Others seemed to adjust to being vampires, even the normally-raised ones that retained their memories.

But then, Raziel was special.

Dusk had always been annoying, with the decrease in light came difficulty seeing. Now, however, it took too long. Waiting for his strength to return, sometimes already caught in battle, was so, so irritating, feeling the gradual increase as the accursed (but no more than he) sun dropped below the horizon.

That was why he had approved Dumah's plan for the furnaces, not for the sake of any new fledge foolish enough to let themselves be caught outside at dawn, thinking themselves still human in some corner of their tiny minds.

However, as irritating as dusk was, feeling one's strength drain away with the night as one was fighting off foes was much, much worse.

Vampires swore by the Dark Gods, humans by Hash'ak'gik, the secret unspoken god of the Circle: strange that both worshipped vampires, though typical that what vampires revered were the Ancients, the uncursed ones while humans bowed before a corrupted (his own curse, ah doomed Turel!), doubly accursed vampire possessed by beings attempting to exterminate instead of simply cull their entire race.

His children had taken the weak, the sick, the old, and the stupid enough to fight back, just as predators did in the nature Bane and the rest of them had corrupted.

Yet the humans objected, with their idea of mercy: what mercy had the 'blessed' Sarafan showed captured fledglings? Or the saintly Janos Audron in his retreat? No, they had destroyed the blood fountains that the Ancients had constructed to _prevent_ their children having to kill living humans.

Humanity had brought all of this on itself.

Well, except for the parts one could blame on the Hylden.

Though they were mad because of the Ancient's war.

And the Ancients had warred because of that hellish thing they, and Moebius, called a god.

Frankly, he'd rather worship Turel, and it was difficult to have any reverence for something you had once needed to clean up the messes of, though fledges were cleaner than human babes, thank… thank what?

He believed in hell, having seen it, and evil, ah, evil was everywhere. He'd seen precious little good in anything but honesty. Even he believed in honor.

So little honor, so little to believe in anywhere in these forsaken worlds, besides in Raziel.

The sun was setting now, as he gazed out at the newly broken pillars, at the mostly still beautiful land. The only light that was constant was the light in the Soul Reaver's eyes, in Raziel's eyes, watching him. New memories came, and he knew that light had always been there in the new future they had built.

He had such power now, in the palms of his hands, and he had hope.

It felt like the poets pictured dawn, light coming to a darkened land, bringing with it life and everything good.

Despite being the Scion, he, a creature of darkness, was he worthy of it?

He remembered Raziel's sins as a Sarafan and felt somewhat better. His doings as a vampire prince were all Kain's responsibility.

At least he had taught his son honesty. At least he had chosen well.

He was proud of his son, and he remembered his parents. Taken by the wheel, even if he found them reborn they would not know him.

What had they thought, seeing him on the day of his birth? Had they loved him instantly as he had not known he loved Raziel?

They would be horrified by what he had become, he knew.

Ah, good, the sun had fully set. Time to go and revive Vorador.

Again. That was an annoying thing about altering history, it sometimes undid things one had gone to some trouble to do.

_This _time, the Sarafan order would not return. This time, his children and Vorador's would have to co-exist.

He had always thought Magnus and Raziel would make fine friends.

It was the dusk of a new night.


End file.
